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Dying away — getting softer and often slower, fading to nothing.
Morendo implies the music is expiring. Use it for passages that should genuinely feel like life draining away — not just soft, but approaching silence and stillness. It carries more emotional weight than a simple diminuendo.
Verdi's "La Traviata," final act — Violetta's death scene includes morendo markings as she fades away.
Morendo is one of 228 terms in the Gradus musical dictionary, where every definition is written around how composers actually use the word.
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